So I've never gotten around to making a build thread because I never felt like the car was ever really close to getting done. Now with the light at the end of the tunnel (haha... watch it be another year), I thought I'd try and put a thread together that shows the progress this car has actually made.

I had wanted a 510 and bid on a couple that were more complete but always lost out. As I searched for another I kept realizing how much re-work I wanted to do to any 510, because I wanted it to be mine from bumper to bumper. So I ended up buying this 510 sight unseen (probably not the best starting decision) in Salt Lake City in 2012 that was a complete project and would need everything done to get it on the road. Realizing that I had a vision but not all the expertise on how to do this correctly, I called JDM Legends in Salt Lake City and asked them if they could work on the car. They agreed to take on the job and we moved all the boxes of car to their garage that year.

Here are some photos from that time:

I'll try to slowly keep updating with photos as I get them organized. But these starting photos should give everyone an idea of how the project began.

two_68_510s wrote:Cool, another 68 resurrected, excellent. Is that engine bay color the final color?

No. I probably spent a few months going back and forth over what color to paint this car. Part of me wanted to paint it the factory color again, because a) it's a pretty rare color and b) it just feels like the right thing to do. But the longer and longer I thought about it I decided that if I was going to fix all the sheet metal and have the car painted that I had to have something at the end of the day that I personally loved and not just do something because others may approve.

The car was painted a blue. I'll show the finished paint eventually, but I'm going to try and post things chronologically.

Once it was in the shop the first thing that happened was to remove everything from the car and send it off to be media blasted. We knew we were going to be doing a nice paint job so we wanted to know what was hiding underneath all the surface rust and paint.

After that I literally called up Techno Toy Tuning and told them "I can haz all the suspension?!?" (Hint: You can haz all the suspension if you ask... and pay). Front and rear coilovers. Lower control arms. Tension control rods. Camber plates. Outer tie rods. The works.

So now that the car was blasted and the suspension had arrived and was in the car I spent the next few months trying to find rims. I decided on getting SSR Reverse Mesh. I honestly thought it would be easy to find a set of these. This was not the case. I eventually learned that Chrome would auto-translate for me and that I could find them on Japanese auction sites. So I contacted a military member in Japan and offered to pay him for each part that he would buy and ship to me. This wasn't the best setup. Lost quite a few auctions over just not being able to communicate easily. But after a few months of searching I had finally found enough matching rims to make a complete set in the sizes that I wanted. 15x7 in front and 15x7.5 in rear. I would have liked to go 14s, but it seems like a ton of tire manufacturers are only making their best performing tires in 15s now and I know that I wanted this car to have as much grip as possible.

Once the we had the car sitting the way we wanted it was time to start collecting parts to make the car a little more correct. The car was a 68, but the previous owner didn't like the old style dash. So he had installed the later model dash. Something about a sweeping speedo just seemed required in this car, so I set out to find a 68 dash. This was far harder than it had to be. Eventually I found a really gross nasty, but complete dash. So I bought it and told myself it would be ok... it can be saved.

The next item on my list was to get a working motor. Originally when I purchased the car I was pretty set on going with a carbed motor. I talked with a few people and they talked me towards getting a fuel injected motor. Still not sure on whether that was a great decision, but it certainly opened the doors to more engine options. The one thing I knew was that I didn't want a turbo. Almost all my cars have been turbo and I wanted an NA motor, but I didn't want that to cost me performance. Kind of a catch 22, so I called Rebello. I told them that I wanted an NA fuel injected motor in the 200hp range. They suggested a motor that's half KA and half 2.4L Z. I wanted a street reliable motor that could run on 91 octane (I live in the midwest... it's basically the best we get). Then end result is great. 240HP/240TQ on an NA 2.4L running 91 octane.

Well this was certainly the first moment that caused some pain. We had presumed the motor would be "drop-in" and that wasn't quite right. The oil pan couldn't sit flat when the engine top was flat. And it was even worse if you tried to lean the engine the direction that a normal KA leans. So we had to lean it the opposite way. This required a custom mount to be made... not a big deal. The actual big deal was that this new sitting position made the header that came with the motor not fit properly.

greenthumb wrote:I've got the big '-' symbol on a bunch of the photos also. Looks like a very cool project. Speaking of tease, what sort of black magic was required to get 240 hp/240tq from a na KA?

Yeah... pretty crazy. Well it's not just a KA. Like I said it's a bit of a frankenstein monster of a motor where everything inside is as beefy as possible and the bottom end is not a KA at all... just the top side. Looking at the dyno sheet again I'm a little off 245hp/232tq.